Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director’s Cut by Jhonen Vasquez
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A brilliant, extremely violent graphic novel that tells the story of a madman (and cartoonist) named Johnny (friends call him Nny), driven by forces he doesn’t understand to keep a wall in his basement covered in fresh blood, lest the demon behind it should break free. Johnny has an affinity for his sweet little neighbor kid Squee, an unlucky little guy whose parents ignore him and leave him at the mercy of the well-meaning but always-terrifying visits from Johnny. The art and the lettering convey an emotional imbalance with energy and wit. I could really almost hear the voices of the characters as I read.

I wouldn’t say I was a huge fan of Happy Noodle Boy, which is the comic that Johnny draws, though it did make me laugh a few times.

Really, though, the book is a stylish examination of the pursuit of a more autonomous life. The main character steals the show, naturally (who doesn’t like a smart and effective madman?), but the supporting characters, such as Squee and Devi (the, ahem, “girl who got away,” who really is the girl who got away) and Mr. Samsa (the name given to the cockroach Johnny believes keeps returning to life — “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to kill you again, Mr. Samsa”) and Nail Bunny and the Doughboys — all contribute to a satisfying whole.

The artistic style is a little like Nightmare Before Christmas after everyone involved did a few more hard drugs. There’s plenty of delightful detail in every frenzied panel.

It’s incredibly sick and smart and fun. Perhaps not for everyone, but definitely for me.

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The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Eight boys go trick-or-treating to a haunted house, only to find a spooky figure, who goes by the impressive name of Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud, ready to whisk them all away on an historical tour through the many variations of All Hallow’s Eve. While discovering the true meaning of Halloween, the boys also struggle to find and save their lost friend, a real boys’ boy named Pipkin.

There are only two problems with this short book: 1.) Bradbury can often be a bit of an All Boys School kind of writer, and this work ratchets that to the extreme; 2.) it’s sometimes a little list-like in its cataloging of all the versions of Halloween that have existed over time (“the Druids did this and the Romans did that and the Christians did something else and now let’s go see about the Mexicans!”).

But to hell with it, because I LOVE this book! Bradbury’s gift for language is at its strongest here. Everything is gorgeously described–from the notes played by the wooden planks of the haunted house’s porch, to a triumphant affirmation of life itself as a boy runs a gauntlet of a hundred mummies, Bradbury’s prose casts a powerful spell.

A powerful work and a poetic meditation on how we deal with the fear of death, this book is the best indictment of the current state of the holiday ever written.

Beautiful.

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Creepshow by Berni Wrightson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Just doing a little weekend comics reading … saw this on the shelf, felt like reading it again. Glad I did.

I’ve adored this book since I was a kid; decades later, it still brings a twisted smile to my face. I used to compulsively read the EC Comics that served as inspiration for this collection, and, while I love those too, I think King’s stories surpass the source material. I’ve read this comic collection more than I’ve seen the film version, and I think I prefer the book for whatever reason.

Standout lines for me: “It’s Father’s Day, and I want my cake!”; “I want to measure the bite marks.”; “I’ll shoot you dead!”

Also, kudos to the concept of a man listening to a television preacher talk about salvation while his own personal doom approaches. Very slick. And I like the monster in the crate as example of a man’s id, restrained, then broken free, then suppressed. King’s symbolism there is top notch.

A few problems: in “The Crate,” I don’t find the initial reactions to the monster at all believable. When you see a man pulled into a crate, I’m pretty sure I would at least open the lid and try to pull the guy out. And then I WOULD get the police. Or someone. RIGHT AWAY. And I would not leave the scene. That was all a bit clumsy, but overall still a great story.

Another problem I noticed this time around is that some of the really revelatory panels are not very well-placed in the book. Too easy to see the surprise event coming.

Of course, I know these stories so well it doesn’t really matter to me, but for the first-time reader, I imagine it wouldn’t be so great to see a panel of someone blowing their brains out before it was obvious that was going to happen.

But anyway, I’m being picky. Overall this collection is diabolical, memorable, campy fun.

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A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Oh, does someone want to sit the Seastone Chair? Oh really? Oh, someone else wants to sit the Iron Throne? Anyone feel like bending the knee? Yeah? No? Maybe? Why don’t you all just fight about it some more. Game of Thrones = a very vicious game of musical chairs.

Oh, so much sitting and sitting and bending! Where will it all end? Hopefully not in the tower cells with the hundred princesses of Dorne, because I barely know where that place is.

I kid. This book continues the long saga of the wars of Westeros, only this time it does so without any dragons. Truth is, this book is mostly exposition. I’d say it’s probably 65% exposition, 35% holy-crap-what-the-hell-just-happened awesomeness. So much boring stuff; so many alarming surprises–and often all in the same chapter!

I mean, is there any chapter in this book that doesn’t introduce new characters? It’s a bit ridiculous. On the one hand, it helps make the universe the story takes place in feel real. On the other hand, I don’t care about so-and-so’s step-grand-uncle’s second wife’s bastard child twice removed, replaced, saddled, and betrothed.

I’m making things and words up here, because that’s how it all starts to read to me after a while.

That said, the overall stories continue to be a blast. What can you do but read on?

So glad I’m done with this one so I can get back to reading about the dragons.

Dragons. Not Dorne. I’m making a t-shirt.

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We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I was a sophomore in high school in 1993, I wrote a big preposterous novel that culminated in a school shooting. I’d read The Basketball Diaries, seen Pearl Jam’s (apparently misunderstood) video for “Jeremy,” and read King’s short novel Rage, so it really didn’t seem anything special to me to write something like that. It was angst-ridden wish-fulfillment of the most obvious kind, sick with its own melodramatic self-righteous anger and autobiographical details. By the time I finished it, I hated the main character only slightly more than I hated myself. I vowed to grow up, and when I wrote my next novel I made it about a girl so it would have less of a chance to be about me.

Then came all the real-life school shootings, and I started to feel even worse–superstitiously complicit, or at least guilty of some kind of thought crime. Watching the CNN coverage of Columbine made me sick to my stomach, and part of the reason I felt so horrible was because of the manic glee I’d had writing some of the worst scenes in that idiotic novel.

So when I heard someone had written a well-reviewed book about a high school massacre, I recoiled. There was simply no way anyone could get it right, and, besides, that was my book. If anyone was going to write it, it should’ve been me.

Well, after reading Lionel Shriver’s book, all I can think to say is: I was so wrong. I knew nothing about this subject, and I’ve just been schooled by a master. I’m so grateful someone better than me took this subject on. Shriver gets everything right in this book, and keeping the novel in the point of view of the mother of a teenager who goes on a killing spree in his high school is a masterstroke.

The plot centers around the efforts of Eva Katchadourian, mother of Kevin Katchadourian, nicknamed KK by the press (which recalls both the initials of Kipland Kinkel as well as, yes, disturbingly, my own), who is in jail after murdering nine people, to put together what it all means and why it happened and come to terms with her culpability as the parent of a murderer.

The triumph of this novel is its ability to put you in the mind of a woman tortured and psychologically abused by her own progeny. Reading this as I did after The Psychopath Test, I found myself often making mental checkmarks as Kevin displayed classic sociopathic tendencies. But even so, this is not a book interested in labels or easy answers so much as it’s a book about the mysteries of character, even Eva’s own. Was she abused by her son, or did she abuse her son? There is no objective answer. There was certainly a war between mother and son, but at the same time it could also seem like an agonized love affair. It’s all so disturbing and uncomfortable and compellingly readable.

Not to mention Shriver’s wonderful prose style, which is literate and still easy to read. It’s great writing that doesn’t attract attention to itself, which is really tough to do.

One thing I still don’t like is the title, which is just a little too “the more you KNOW” and after-school-special-ish for me. But so it goes.

This is one of the best horror novels about being a parent that’s ever been written.

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